The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg preserves a remarkable and comparatively under-studied collection of Greek New Testament manuscripts. Its earliest New Testament witness is GA 091, a sixth-century majuscule fragment of John; its latest is GA 2267, a manuscript containing the Gospel of Matthew and dated to 1830, making it the second latest-dated manuscript in the entire Kurzgefasste Liste. The collection spans fourteen centuries and displays a unique cross-section of the Greek New Testament tradition, from the early Byzantine period to the nineteenth century.
Much of this collection has not been easily accessible to scholars outside Russia. Until recently, high-quality digital images of these manuscripts were not available online, as far as I am aware. Of the 35 Greek New Testament manuscripts in the collection, 24 were available on microfilm in the NTVMR, while the remaining 11 (GA 3003, L623, L840, L844, L1431, L1841, L1842, L1843, L1844, L1845, L1846) have no images at all for the portions held in St. Petersburg.
Last year, the Russian Academy of Sciences published an online manuscript catalog with full-color digital images for all but four of these manuscripts (GA 2267, L 1431, L 1481, L 1486).
Accessing those images, however, has not been straightforward. The catalog runs on an older IRBIS interface, and the URLs generated by the site were not stable. As a result, they worked only temporarily, which hampered access even before these images could receive much scholarly attention. Unfortunately, these images do not appear to be available on any other platform.
I first had to reconstruct, test, and standardize the URLs before they could be opened and shared reliably. The link to the original catalog, which seems to have been down for some time, can now be accessed here. I have worked through the Greek New Testament entries and rebuilt the URLs here so that researchers can consult the manuscript images and the relevant catalog records.
These links provide access not only to the images themselves, but also to a brief codicological profile of the artifact, with its contents, shelfmark, date, material, dimensions, and script. Many records also include information about provenance, related fragments, bibliography, and other relevant details.
Below you will find the full inventory of the 35 Greek New Testament manuscripts held by the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, along with their respective links and a selection of available digital images.
Majuscule
GA 091
Date: VI
Shelfmark: Inostr. F N° 410
Minuscules
GA 1338
Date: XII
Shelfmark: Dmitr. 29
GA 1826
Date: XIII
Shelfmark: RAIK 79
GA 1858
Date: XIII
Shelfmark: Dmitr. 33
GA 2159
Date: 1281
Shelfmark: RAIK 76
GA 2267
Date: 1830
Shelfmark: RAIK 165
Not digitized
GA 2269
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 70
GA 2273
Date: XIV
Shelfmark: RAIK 86
GA 2274
Date: XIV
Shelfmark: RAIK 84
GA 2275
Date: XI
Shelfmark: RAIK 72
GA 2311
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 85
GA 2500
Date: 891
Shelfmark: RAIK 74
GA 2534
Date: XI/XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 73
GA 2535
Date: XI/XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 83
GA 2536
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 90
GA 3003
Date: X
Shelfmark: RAIK 15 (lower text)
Lectionaries
L 623
Date: XIII
Shelfmark: Dmitr. 13b
L 840
Date: XII
Shelfmark: Dmitr. 13a
L 844
Date: 861/62?
Shelfmark: RAIK 194
L 1431
Date: XV
Shelfmark: Inostr. Q N° 16
Not digitized
L 1432
Date: XIII
Shelfmark: Inostr. F N° 5 (Frg A)
L 1481
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 77
Not digitized
L 1483
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 80
L 1484
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 81
L 1485
Date: X
Shelfmark: RAIK 3 + 67 (see here)
L 1486
Date: XVII
Shelfmark: RAIK 88
Not digitized
L 1487
Date: XV
Shelfmark: RAIK 91
L 1488
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 78
L 1841
Date: XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 68
L 1842
Date: XIV
Shelfmark: RAIK 71
L 1843
Date: XI
Shelfmark: RAIK 75
L 1844
Date: XIV
Shelfmark: RAIK 87
L 1845
Date: XI
Shelfmark: RAIK 93
L 1846
Date: XI/XII
Shelfmark: RAIK 193
L 2344
Date: XIV
Shelfmark: Inostr. F N° 5 (Frg B)
Another interesting feature of this collection is that a number of its manuscripts include a small manuscript consultation log at the back of the codex. This is the sheet for GA 2159, where the names of well-known Byzantine art historians, including Kurt Weitzmann and Ioannis Spatharakis, can be discerned, giving us a glimpse into who has consulted this artifact over the years and how manuscripts continue to gather new histories long after they are produced.
This brief post has aimed to draw attention to a fascinating collection of newly digitized Greek New Testament manuscripts, which has remained something of a hidden treasure, and to make the collection more usable for those interested in these artifacts by bringing together working links connected with their GA numbers. Whether these links will remain stable over time remains to be seen, but it is hoped that they will make this fascinating, newly digitized collection easier to explore.
What a great, but tedious work you did, dear Katie, in rebuilding these St. Petersburg links in order to make them accessible for everybody – I am very grateful to be enabled by you now to look at these beautifully digitized manuscripts, thank you!
Many thanks for this. I had no idea all these were online now. Will they also be uploaded in the VMR?